Maia Wojciechowska is often a fine writer. ["'Don't Play Dead Before You Have To'"] is nearly one of those times.

There are good things. Here is an attempt to write about the kid in-between—neither college nor slum-bound, neither bright nor deadeningly dumb, not ambitious but aware—the middle achiever who is too frequently ignored. There is an honest, moving, yet oddly oblique look at the depression and attempted suicide of a very bright child whose parents are separating. And there is a lovely coup de théâtre as an old man, a once-famous philosopher, allows a television interview knowing he will die on camera.

There are some not-so-good things, too. The contrivance on which the entire novel rests. An inconsistency of focus. A confusion about how perceptive, how alone our hero is really to be.

Can a book's basic flaws be overcome by enough shining albeit scattered...